Car Accident

All posts tagged Car Accident

I had this whole rant written, that I’m pretty sure was mostly influenced by fever and cough meds. I deleted the rant, and am going to stick to the bare bones as best I can.

The Boy was in a car accident yesterday morning. Fortunately, no one was hurt. However the car’s radiator is cracked. It’s currently in the shop, and we’re waiting to hear what the estimate is and what insurance is going to cover.I’m scared, frustrated, and overwhelmed. Since we got married two years ago it’s felt like we’ve become life’s punching bag. I know we have a lot to be thankful for, that we’re far better off than quite a few people. I’m just tired of the constant barrage of “other shoes” that keep dropping. I’ve shared a little of our struggles, but kept many parts of the last two years very private, because frankly it’s not something I’ve been prepared to share. I still need more distance from the events to be able to write about them with a clear head. Hindsight and time are valuable things when it comes to learning lessons.

I’m not sure how to end this, so I ask for your prayers and good thoughts. And if you’re feeling really beat up by life, please know you’re not alone.

I have a lot of things I’m scared of. Snakes, spiders, snakes, heights, snakes, anything in a scary movie, snakes…well, you get the idea. However, the two all time scariest moments of my life actually took place while I was driving (and neither involved snakes). One, of course, is when I went off the road in a blizzard. Granted, I didn’t get scared until after being rescued, and I realized that I should have died. The all time scariest moment came in December of 2009.

It was noon on Saturday, December 5th, 2009, I was with my parents, and I was driving on West Center (a main road here in Omaha). Being the noon hour, traffic was heavy. We were sitting in a long line of traffic waiting for the light at 120th & W. Center to change. I remember looking up in my rear view mirror and seeing a car coming up behind me. I could tell that it wasn’t slowing down, and even though my foot was already on the brake (because we were stopped), I put as much pressure into holding the brake down as I could. Right before the car slammed into the back of my car, I saw that the driver was just chatting away on her cell phone, completely oblivious to the fact that she was about to cause an accident. The impact came, our car was pushed up into the car in front of us, and then unexpectedly the car behind us hit us a second time. It took a moment, but when no more impacts came, it was time to see what had happened.

Turns out, the woman who hit us wasn’t the only one on her phone not paying attention. There was another woman in the car behind the woman who rear ended us, and she too was on her cell phone. You read that right, both women were talking on their cell phones not paying a whit of attention to anything. Not only that, but it ended up being a paramedic who witnessed what happened who called 9-1-1. I didn’t have a phone at the time, and the gentleman who’s truck I got pushed into didn’t have one either. Neither of the two women who caused the accident bothered to ever use their phones to call 9-1-1.

Miraculously, no one was killed, or injured; which considering the fact that both women were going at least 45 mph when they hit is pretty amazing. (Although, the stress of the event triggered a nightmare medical situation with my mom over the next week, but that’s a story for another post.)

Ever since that nightmare day, I’ve been very anti using your cell phone to text or call while driving. That accident should never have happened. So, you can imagine the rage I felt yesterday when I got on Facebook, and saw one of my acquaintances had written that when a guy honked and shook his finger at her for texting and driving, she proceeded to flip him off and continue texting at the same time. And to make it really great, she hash-tagged it “multitasking.”

Cue Seth and Amy, it’s time for “Really?”. Really? REALLY??????

Last time I checked driving is not the time to be “multitasking.” A car is an incredibly dangerous weapon when used irresponsibly. And yes, I consider texting and driving to be just as irresponsible as talking on the cell phone and driving. If you don’t care about your own life, show respect and care for other people’s lives. People in the cars around you are human beings. Every single driver is someone’s daughter or son. Every single passenger is someone’s daughter or son. This isn’t “The Sims” where you can just recreate the character should Death come knocking. There is no pause button, and the game doesn’t reset just because someone died. Those other drivers don’t deserve to have their lives taken away or messed up badly because you don’t have the patience to wait until you’ve reached your destination to use your phone.

At the end of the day, life is too valuable to destroy so recklessly and irresponsibly.

First off, let me just say that I am NOT a fan of snow, and after today I never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever want to see snow ever again. Just like Taylor Swift I’m officially broken up (except, in my case it’s with a weather condition and not the latest in a never-ending string of boyfriends).

Today I headed back to ND, picking up my friend in Sioux City. The wind was terrible, but I could deal with it. Plus, before I left Omaha, I checked all the road reports and weather, and everything was saying it was all okay. When we got to Sioux Falls, there was some snow that was blowing across the road, but it wasn’t too terrible, and I decided to push on to Brookings (about 40 miles north). The blowing snow progressively got worse, and I ended up driving slower and slower. I should have pulled off at the Casino exit, but we were only about 12-15 miles from Brookings and I thought we could make it. I don’t know what happened, we were driving slow, and suddenly I felt the van sliding sideways and we ended up gliding off into the ditch. Honestly, if we had to go in the ditch, it could’ve been a million times worse. We went so slow and just glided and didn’t roll the vehicle.

I tried to dig the van out and poured the kitty litter and did all the things that you’re supposed to do to get unstuck and back on the road. Nothing worked. We were stuck. I called 9-1-1, and I regretted it. The South Dakota 9-1-1 dispatchers was incredibly rude and this was basically the conversation:

Me: Our vehicle went off the road and we’re stuck in a ditch and need help.

Dispatcher: Where are you at?

Me: About 10-12 miles south of Brookings.

Dispatcher: What county are you in?

Me: I have no idea, I’m not from around here.

Dispatcher: Let me transfer you to the sheriff’s department.

I was then transferred to the sheriff’s department.

Sheriff’s dispatcher: What county are you in (Listing off two county names I didn’t even recognize)?

Me: I have no idea, I’m not from here.

Sheriff’s dispatcher: Well, is anybody injured?

Me: No, but we’re stuck.

Sheriff’s dispatcher: Well, there’s a lot of people that have gone off the road, so someone will get there at some point.

And that was the whole of the conversation. I understand that their department was under quite a bit of stress, but there was no reason to treat a scared girl who was asking for help like they’re just causing a problem.

Fortunately, people from Katy’s company were passing by and able to pick us up. My car is currently stranded south of Brookings, but we’re safe. In case anyone’s wondering what the roads looked like, here’s some pictures!

I really wish that these pictures weren’t accurate, but that’s really how bad it looked.